The two entrants stand at opposite ends of the dais. Deep within, their Shadow Clones face off, motionless, hands hovering over holstered guns.

The crowd holds its breath - and as if by an invisible signal, both draw and fire simultaneously! The sound of the bullets colliding in mid-air rising above the erupting cheers.

You shoulder your way through the throng of people to get a better view, and the cheers reach a new high as one of the contestants falls. They bump into you as they exit the stadium, ripping up a ticket, salty tears streaming down their cheeks.

Yeah. This is exactly what you are in the mood for.

Number One Rules

You vs. 1 other player.

You start with 1 bullet and 5 HP. Your three actions are Reload (gain 1 bullet, max 6), Block (defend against a shot), and Fire (take a shot). If you Fire, you also pick the number of bullets you will use up.

If you Fire and your opponent Reloads, you win!

If you Fire and your opponent Blocks, they lose 1 HP for every bullet you fired past the first one (Fire 1, they lose 0 HP. Fire 3, they lose 2 HP. etc).

If someone's HP hits 0 or below, they lose! (if you both do at once, lower HP loses. Tied? It's a coin flip who wins!)

If you both Fire at the same time, whoever fired more bullets wins! (If tie, bullets are lost, nothing happens)

If you and your opponent ever both have 0 bullets, you each automatically reload - even in the middle of a 2nd Move!

Once you enter your move, it'll either say "Locked In" (you are waiting for your Opponent to move) or it will show the results of your choices.

You then choose what you'll do next if you want, based on your opponent's action (This is the "2nd Move" area). Tourneys let you fight your way to the top, getting unique BvS rewards!

Skirmishes let you beat on people for fun.

AI tourneys are 100% random - you autoplay until you win the tourney or fail. Skirmishes are random. All survival outcomes are re-entered immediately. No ranking change, no entry bonus.

Challenges are 1/day max against a specific player. Ryo is only taken if the challenge is accepted. Winner receives 95% of the take. No ranking change, no entry bonus.

The Deal

PvP ro-sham-bo. Play until you or your opponent Fires when the other one Reloads, both of you Fire but one side Fires more bullets at once (and/or has Pierce), or someone runs out of HP. (HP is lost when one side Fires more than 1 bullet and the other side Blocks, Fatigue from Blocking too much in a row when your opponent isn't Firing, or the match going past round 10.) Matches consist of "skirmishes", which just generate Wins and Participations (which you can turn in for tournament tickets), and "tournaments", which are the main attraction (see below).

Winning a match gives you a Win (and possibly more if it is the final match of a tournament). Winning or losing a match gives you more or less ranking (not to be confused with Ranking from Awesome; Number One ranking is totally independent). This is reset every 11 days. The top 11 Number One ranking players are listed, and can once per day get extra tickets (4th-11th place get 1 T1 ticket, 2nd or 3rd gets 1 T2 ticket, and 1st gets 1 T3 ticket), except on the day when ranking is reset (where nothing is given, to prevent the first 11 match winners that day from drawing tickets just for being the first winners). If you're in the top 11 and you think you may be about to win a match, you may wish to delay drawing until you do; conversely, if you're in and you can see that you're about to lose a match, you probably want to draw ASAP.

Number One is not synchronous. You enter a pair of moves, and then usually come back hours later or the next day to enter your next moves. (Just don't wait 36 hours: if a match waits on you for 36 hours, you lose. Conversely, if your opponent makes you wait for 36 hours, you win.) On rare occasion you may have a near-real-time battle with someone else who happens to be on at the same time, but they could go AFK at any point and break the real-time-ness. Even in case of real-time battles, you have to wait at least 10 seconds between refreshes to see if your opponent has moved. You can be in up to 10 matches at once.

Whenever you enter a move, you must also enter your next move, depending on what your opponent does (e.g., "if opponent Reloads then do this, if opponent Blocks then do this, et cetera"). The purpose is to speed matches along. These second moves have to be legal, so you can't Fire all your bullets in your first move then Fire again as a second move, unless you anticipate that you and your opponent might use up all your bullets - in which case an Autoload happens, where you each get a bullet, then second moves are played out normally.

If this is too much (or if you're straining against the "max 10 matches at once" limit), you can simply mill your skirmishes, T1 tickets, and T2 tickets. This automatically plays against the AI. It can generate Wins, T2 tickets, and T3 tickets respectively, and they all generate Participations (and prize entries for T2 tournaments), but nothing else. (In particular, no ranking.) T3 and above must be played normally.

Every day, you get 1 skirmish and 1 T1 ticket. (An additional 3 skirmishes and 1 T2 ticket if you're in BillyClub. You can also increase this through the Unsalted Competitor ability.) Skirmishes and T1 tickets don't bank: spend them by dayroll or lose them. You can get additional T1 tickets by redeeming Wins (3 Wins = 1 T1 ticket) or Participations (5 Participations = 1 T1 ticket). You can also purchase T1 ticket and skirmish ticket pairs for Ryo, Resource Points, Rage, or Style points (prices subject to change, see in-game dialogue; there are fixed-price Base tickets and increasing-price Variable tickets, the latter getting more expensive as more players buy in a given day; these are the same tickets either way, but you can only buy each type - such as Fixed Ryo or Variable Rage - once per day). Ranking can give you free tickets, as described above.

Tournaments

To enter a tournament you need a ticket of the appropriate tier: T1 for Tier 1 tournaments, et cetera. Tournaments start automatically when the right number of entrants are ready. You can enter the same tournament tier repeatedly (that is, you don't have to wait for the next Tier 1 tournament to start before spending all your T1 tickets); this queues you up to enter the next that-many tournaments of that tier.

Tournaments are a series of matches until there is only one undefeated player remaining. If you are that winner, you get a ticket to the next highest tier (e.g., win a Tier 1 tournament to get a Tier 2 ticket) - except for Tier 11 (currently a special prize known only to RedRum, and he only revealed part of it). Otherwise, if you only have one loss, you get a consolation prize. If you have two losses, you are removed from the tournament. You also get a bonus for entering a tournament, depending on tier:

5 Crane Cranes and a Tier 4 ticket (though you won't be notified upon winning)

Nothing (and costs 10 Tier 3 tickets)

Nothing

Footnotes

1. One banked Festival which you can trigger from the Village Menu whenever you want (except on the 11th), lasting from when you start it until dayroll. The marksman showdown and fortune teller have custom text, since this is a one-off not tied to any other player's Festival. The Marksman showdown gives you a unique new Tiny Bee Weapon, called Tiny Bee A Salt Rifle